critic pick|rock/pop: Legendary Pink Dots
It’s hard to reconcile this band’s marriage of psychedelia and darkwave, but throughout the Legendary Pink Dots’ 20-year career, they’ve managed to circumvent most attempts at genre pigeonholing. In the process, they’ve lost track of how many albums they have released. However, add one more to the list, the just-released A Perfect Mystery (Solielmoon), which will no doubt continue LPD’s tradition of releasing critically acclaimed albums that move between casual Syd Barrett-influenced psychotica and jarring electronic strains best compared to the likes of Skinny Puppy. In fact, if you haven’t heard of Legendary Pink Dots, despite their wide-reaching appeal along several musical spectrums, you might have heard of The Tear Garden, their side collaboration with Skinny Puppy. Lyrical brilliance, classical motives and epic concepts all fuse with elegant layers of guitar and programming for a trip for neohippies and gothlings alike. Not to be missed.
—Helen H. Thompson
